Comparative efficacy and safety of acupuncture and Western medicine for poststroke thalamic pain.

Poststroke thalamic pain (PSTP) is one of the most common sequelae following stroke. Analgesics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and surgical treatment are conventional treatment methods of PSTP, but these methods have limited efficacy, cost more, and cause a likelihood of adverse reactions. Clinical studies have shown that acupuncture has a significant analgesic effect on PSTP without obvious side effects. But, there is a lack of high-quality evidence concerning its effectiveness and safety to support its use. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of acupuncture versus Western medicine for the treatment of PSTP to provide evidence to support clinical PSTP treatment. Searches were conducted to identify randomized controlled trials investigating the use of acupuncture for PSTP across six databases, including PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan Fang Database, and the Chinese Scientific Journal Database VIP. RevMan 5.3 software was used for the meta-analysis. The results showed that compared with Western medicine, acupuncture had a higher total effective rate for the treatment of PSTP, reduced visual analog scale scores, increased beta-endorphin content, and decreased incidence of adverse reactions. However, the sample sizes of the included studies were insufficient, and the quality of the articles was relatively poor. In future studies, the clinical study design should be standardized and the sample size should be expanded to validate these results.

Purification, characterization and in vitro antioxidant activities of polysaccharide from Chaenomeles speciosa.

A water-soluble polysaccharide named as CSP-2 was isolated and purified from Chaenomeles speciosa by DEAE-Sepharose and Sephadex G-100 column chromatography. CSP-2 was composed of galactose (Gal), rhamnose (Rha), glucose (Glc) and xylose (Xyl) with a relative molar ratio of 3.8:1.6:1.2:0.4. The average molecular weight of CSP-2 was estimated to be about 4.6×104Da. The in vitro antioxidant assay showed that CSP-2 exhibited remarkable antioxidant activities to scavenge the DPPH radical, superoxide radical, hydroxyl radical and ABTS radical and significant cytoprotective effects on H2O2-induced PC12 cells injury in a concentration-dependent manner. Overall, CSP-2 may be useful as a naturally potential antioxidant agent for application in food and medicinal fields.

Antitumor and immunomodulatory activities of a water-soluble polysaccharide from Chaenomeles speciosa.

In this study, a water-soluble polysaccharide (CSP) was successfully purified from Chaenomeles speciosa by DEAE-Sepharose and Sephadex G-100 column chromatography. CSP had a weight-average molecular weight of about 6.3 × 10(4)Da and was composed of glucose (Glc), galactose (Gal), rhamnose (Rha) and arabinose (Ara) with a relative molar ratio of 4.6:1.3:0.8:0.5. CSP could not only inhibit the growth of S180 tumor transplanted in mice, but also increase the relative spleen index and body weight of tumor bearing mice. Moreover, concanavalin A (ConA) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced splenocyte proliferation and peritoneal macrophage phagocytosis were also enhanced after CSP administration. Furthermore, CSP treatment could improve delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) and promote the secretion of IL-2, TNF-α and IFN-γ in serum. The overall findings suggest that the antitumor effect of CSP is might be associated with its potent immunostimulatory activity.

Chemical composition, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of essential oil from Ampelopsis megalophylla.

Chemical composition, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the essential oil of Ampelopsis megalophylla were evaluated in this research. GC-MS analysis of the essential oil revealed 42 compounds, representing 88.54% of the oil. The major compounds were borneol (10.81%), α-pinene (6.74%) and ß-elemene (6.23%). The antimicrobial activity of the essential oil was evaluated against 13 micro-organisms using the disc diffusion and broth microdilution methods. Results demonstrated higher effects of this oil against Gram-positive bacteria than the other reference strains tested. The antioxidant effect of the essential oil was evaluated by using 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,20-azinobis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonate scavenging assays. The essential oil exhibited moderate antioxidant activity.